Annals of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, A.D. 1598-A.D. 1867 / With a Preliminary Notice of the earlier Library founded in the Fourteenth Century

by William Dunn Macray

A.D. 1843.

The valuable collection of Oriental MSS. formed by the celebrated traveller, James Bruce, of Kinnaird, was purchased for

£1000. It consists of ninety-six volumes, of which twenty-six are in Ethiopic, and seventy in Arabic; there is also one Coptic MS. on papyrus. Included in vol. iv. of an Ethiopic copy of the Old Testament is one of the three copies of the Book of Enoch, which were brought by Bruce from Abyssinia, and which were then (if they be not even still) the only manuscripts of the book to be found in Europe. One of the three had been given by Bruce himself to the University, in 1788, through the hands of Dr. Douglas, Bishop of Salisbury; it is written on forty leaves of vellum, in triple columns, and is now exhibited in the glass case near the entrance of the Library. It was from this MS. that Dr. Laurence, afterwards Archbishop of Cashel, first made the translation which he published in 1821, and then subsequently, in 1838, published the original text. The second copy ('elegantissimum et celeberrimum') was given by Bruce to Louis XVI, and is now in the Imperial Library at Paris. By the purchase of the third, the Bodleian is, therefore, the possessor of two out of the three.

Two unsuccessful attempts had previously been made to dispose of the collection by auction. It was first announced for sale by Mr. Christie, for May 17, 1827, to be disposed of in one lot; and a list was issued, abridged from the catalogue made by Dr. Alex. Murray, the editor of Bruce's Travels. The issue of this proposed sale is recorded by Douce in the following MS. note on his copy of the auction catalogue: 'These MSS. were put in by the owner at £5500, and after an elaborate eulogium on them by Mr. Christie, no bidding or advance took place, and they were of course withdrawn. Had the owner offered them for £500, I should think the same result would have happened.' The second attempt was made in 1842, when the MSS. were offered for sale by Mr. George Robins, on May 30, but it appears that even all the eloquence of that most moving of auctioneers failed to elicit a bid corresponding to the expectation of the seller; and so the collection fortunately

remained intact, to be disposed of to our Library in the year following.

A catalogue of the Ethiopic MSS. of the collection was issued in a small quarto volume (eighty-seven pages), in 1848, as part vii. of the General Catalogue of MSS. It was compiled by a German scholar, well acquainted with this branch of Oriental literature, Dr. A. Dillmann, and contains, besides Bruce's books, three of Pococke's MSS., one of Laud's, one of Clarke's, and three others; in all thirty-five.

Valuable materials for the history of Devon were secured by the purchase (for £90) of the collections made for that purpose by Jeremiah Milles, D.D., Dean of Exeter, and Pres. of the Soc. of Antiquaries. The library of Dean Milles (who died Feb. 13, 1784) was sold by auction by Mr. Leigh Sotheby, in April; and these collections, comprised in eighteen volumes in folio, one in quarto, and one in octavo, formed a principal feature in the sale.

In this year the new Catalogue of the general Library of printed books, exclusive of the Gough and Douce libraries, and the collections of Hebrew books and Dissertations, of which already special catalogues were in print, was completed and published in three folio volumes. It had been commenced in the year 1837, and was prepared by the Rev. Arthur Browne, M.A., Chaplain of Ch. Ch. (now a retired Chaplain of the Royal Navy), whose share comprises the letters P-R, and the commencement of S; the Rev. Henry Cary, M.A. (son of the Translator of Dante, then Incumbent of St. Paul's, Oxford, but now, by returning to his previous profession of the Law, a barrister in Australia), who is responsible for the letters F-K, and part of L; and Rev. Alfred Hackman, M.A., Chaplain and Precentor of Ch. Ch., and now Sub-librarian, who completed the greater part of it, viz. the letters A-E, L (from London)-O, S (from Shakespeare)-Z. The whole

charges of the printing of the Catalogue amounted to £2990 12s.[343]; the previous cost of compilation was about £2000.

Bowyer. Italian Municipal Statutes. See [1838].